She’s in the mood for love

The 19-year-old French actress whose film about a gay affair lit up Cannes says she can’t wait for her next screen romance

Adèle Exarchopoulos at the Cannes festival, where Blue Is the Warmest Colour won the Palme d’Or (Sebastien Nogier)

After nights sipping champagne on celebrity-packed rooftops and billionaires’
yachts, Adèle Exarchopoulos, the Cinderella of the Cannes film festival, has
returned to earth with a bump.

The 19-year-old who stunned critics with her performance in Blue Is the
Warmest Colour, an audacious lesbian love story that won the festival’s top
prize, the Palme d’Or, and turned her into the belle of the ball, is looking
forward to a quiet night in with her parents.

“It’s like a dream,” she tells me as we sit in her agent’s office. She looks
like any other 19-year-old in a denim jacket and jeans, a sharp contrast
with the long white dress she wore on the red carpet. “Now that I’m back in
Paris, nothing much seems to have changed.”

Not yet, perhaps. But fame and fortune await Exarchopoulos. Hailed as the
“revelation” of the festival, the great-granddaughter of a Greek immigrant
is likely